


I Know You

by SupremeLeaderRen13



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-24 13:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15631431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SupremeLeaderRen13/pseuds/SupremeLeaderRen13
Summary: "You still don't think I'm real, do you?"In a dream or a nightmare, they've seen each other before.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> May the Force be with you, always.  
> This will be continued, I just have to pay attention to some of my other stories first.

**Leia**  
“Senator Organa. We’ve arrived.” Korr Sella spoke softly from the doorway. Leia glanced up at her assistant’s dark eyes and smiled ruefully.  
“I think the time for that title has passed, Korrie.” She rose to her feet, feeling strange in her sweeping robes, especially next to Korrie’s utilitarian jumpsuit.  
Korrie shrugged. “Then make a new title. We stand behind you, always.” Her eyes were shining now, with resolve or pride or both. Leia patted the girl’s shoulder.  
“Names can be deceiving. They create legends.” She stepped through the doorway and felt the familiar sinking as the ship settled onto its landing gear. Threepio materialized at her side, for once not blabbering about the planet’s statistics or the proper protocol for changing one’s title. There was a hush over the place, as though they were still in the silent vacuum created by space. Leia bit her lip and nodded at her pilot.  
“I’m ready.” The ramp descended with a hiss, steam marring her view outside of the ship. No, not steam—smoke. The planet was covered in smoldering ashes, and the stench of decay was overwhelming. No matter—she hadn’t fought a war to run from these things. Leia squared her shoulders and marched forward.  
Korrie gasped. It was utter destruction, the ground burnt to inky blackness in some places while the Jedi temple that Luke had so carefully constructed still burned in the distance. Leia gulped and motioned to two soldiers behind her. They began to fan out and search the wreckage. Every so often one would crouch down, stretch out a hand, then shake their head and move on. She trailed them in silence, forcing herself to look at each unfamiliar face.  
They weren’t dead. She would have felt in the Force. It would have brought her to her knees.  
Still, she couldn’t help but look. Dark hair sent her heart racing. An old brown boot had her clenching her fists. But it was never them. She swallowed her revulsion when the victims grew younger, some of their skin blackened like the land around them. Korrie slapped her hand over her mouth and fled, murmuring an apology.  
“Luke,” she whispered. “Ben. Where are you?” Her lip quivered and she forced herself to stop. If they were here, she would find them. There was no sense in giving up before the fact. She had just started to follow her men towards the glowing temple when something called to her. Leia paused and turned her head. Yes, there it was again. A whisper.  
She wandered down a small path, her heart sinking when she saw the hut. Or what had once been a hut, she supposed. The roof had completely caved in, barely leaving a foundation three stones high in its wake. It was his, Ben’s. Her son’s. She had seen it infrequently, in the background of holo videos, but there was no doubt in her mind. Now it lay in ruins, and she had no idea why.  
Her shoes crunched against the fractured rock as she passed through what once had been the door. There was no scent of death here, but something…lingered. The light in her snarled at it. This, more than anything else, struck fear in her heart. What had happened here?  
She overturned a few stones and ceiling tiles that seemed to be resting on something elevated. It was a desk, she realized. It had split down the middle, splintering clear through the drawer. There was a piece of paper crushed underneath it. With difficulty, Leia managed to extract it. Calligraphy. He heart beat in her ears. She’d recognize the style anywhere. Han hadn’t been impressed with Ben’s hobby, but she’d found it encouraging. Her son, so wild with temper and desire and excitement, had taken to calligraphy. It was calming and precise and exactly what he needed. Her own mother had been fond of it as well.  
Leia tucked the paper into her chest and continued to search the hut. The next elevated pile revealed a bed. She ran her hand over the cover, brushing away the dirt. Had he really slept here, just yesterday? The day before? If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been since she’d heard from her brother or her son. She lifted the pillow and sniffed it. No matter what, your children’s hair always smelled the same. Right on the top of their head where goodnight kisses go. Holding Ben’s pillow created a longing so deep she thought it might pull her to the floor.  
_What happened, baby?_  
“Senator.” Leia straightened and dropped the pillow back on the bed.  
“Yes? What have you found?” The soldier shook his head. “Not them, Senator, I’m sorry. But I did find someone else who knows you.”  
Leia’s forehead creased as she frowned. “Who…?”  
She heard him before she saw him. “Artoo!” The little blue and white astromech droid came whirring towards her, but without any of the happy beeps or squeals that she associated with him. She crouched down. “Artoo, what happened? Where are they?”  
The soldier cleared his throat. “There’s video footage. Something you need to see.” Leia glanced up at him.  
“Connix? What is it?” The man’s face was positively wrecked. He had a daughter at home, she knew, and the carnage was likely getting to him. “You can go back to the ship if you need to.”  
“I think I’d better stay,” he whispered. Leia looked at Artoo for explanation. The droid rolled forward and projected its most recent footage. Bile rose in her throat as she watched, eventually closing her eyes. She didn’t understand.  
“Senator.” Leia opened her eyes to see Luke’s projection. His face was haggard and bloodied. He rested his robotic hand on Artoo.  
“I’m sorry, old friend. I have to…” Luke wandered away from the camera. The video clicked off.  
“That’s it?” Leia tapped on Artoo’s body. “That can’t be it! Artoo!” The machine beeped morosely and rolled towards the ship.  
“I’m so sorry, Senator. But I think we should head back. Did you know the attacker?” Connix’s tone was gentle, innocent. He had no idea what they’d just watched.  
Leia stood and cleared her throat. “N-no. I didn’t.” The lie came unbidden. “But we do need to get back.” She followed Connix to the ship, where they rejoined Korrie.  
“Princess?” Threepio ran towards her, arms held aloft. “Artoo has gone into shutdown. I can’t get him to restart. What’s happened to Master Luke?”  
“I…I don’t know.” She motioned to Korrie. “Contact Admiral Ackbar. Tell him General Organa needs his help.”  
“General?” Korrie raised her eyebrows. “Is there a battle?”  
“No,” Leia said, surreptitiously trying to contact Han on her com. “There’s a war.”  
**Ben**  
He felt his mother calling out to him. Of all the things he was feeling right now—the hurt, gut-wrenching fear, excitement—this was the one that drove him up and out of bed. The blanket made a soft thump as it hit the floor and Ben winced, glancing anxiously at the sleeping forms of his friends. Lucien rolled over to look at him blearily, but his eyes slid shut again without really registering Ben’s presence.  
Quietly, he crept towards the cockpit of the ship, settling into the captain’s seat. His legs rested naturally in the yokes, as though no time had passed since he had done this every day. Flying was natural to him, easy even. Despite everything that he was feeling when they left Luke—even now the name soured in his thoughts—his heart had leapt when they took off.  
He peered through the viewport into the darkness. Takodana had been one of his favorite places to visit with his father when he was a kid. He liked Maz’s crumbling castle and the strange characters at the cantina. Sometimes when his father had kicked his feet up on the table to reminisce with Chewie, Ben could almost see what the great smuggler Han Solo had once been. But most of all, Ben had liked to tour Maz’s collection of oddities.  
That hadn’t been the original plan. When they were getting ready to leave, Ben had logged in the coordinates without thinking, looking for somewhere safe and familiar, but also remote. The forests of Takodana had afforded him with the right amount of protection, and given him time to think. The students who had come with him were looking for a leader. At 23, he was older than most of them, too old to have been babysat by Luke Skywalker. Now he had to prove himself.  
Maz had been shocked and delighted to see him, although disappointed he hadn’t brought Chewie. That was how Ben could tell that the news hadn’t traveled far yet. He thought about the item he had wrapped in cloth and pressed into Maz’s hands. Safekeeping, for later. He couldn’t risk it with—  
“Ben.” Pain sliced through his head, and then Snoke’s voice reverberated through his very being. “It’s time for you to come to me.”  
He swallowed. “Of course.”  
“And leave that longing behind.”  
His heart pounding in his ears, he forced himself to answer.  
“Yes, master.”  
Pain again, and nothing. For some reason, he didn’t remember the pain from when Snoke would speak to him during his childhood. It was like having a very protective shadow then. Not so much anymore.  
Ben used his feet to make the chair sway side to side, thinking hard. His mother’s call pulled on him, aggravating the newly formed darkness inside of him. The stalemate between the two sides of the Force was giving him a headache. In desperation, he shut himself off from the light, cleaving it neatly from his being. It was still there, under the surface, but manageable. And he couldn’t hear his mother anymore.  
Thank the Maker.  
Stars, he was tired. He could just see his face reflected in the viewport. His eyes were hollow. He untucked his hair from behind his ears, where he kept pushing it absentmindedly. It swung forward to hide his least-favorite feature.  
He couldn’t believe he was here. That Luke had actually tried to—he growled, furious and hurt, unable to finish the thought. That new presence that had awoken inside him responded immediately, fueling his rage. The cockpit shook with it. Warmth spread throughout his body. It felt good. Power felt good.  
On the floor in front of him there was another package wrapped in the same type of cloth he had used to transport his item to Maz. Ben peeled it back and looked beneath it. The twisted, melted helmet of Darth Vader seemed to respond to his touch. This was who he needed. Not Luke, not his mother, but Anakin Skywalker.  
Snoke said he could help him commune with Vader. But only if he came to him.  
Ben chewed on his lip for a minute more before punching in the coordinates.  
The decision was made.  
**Rey**  
“Kriff!” Rey was hot, and she was sick of being hot, but it was always hot. So there was nothing left to do but let out some of that frustration by employing a few choice words she had picked up from some of the junkers in the village. She kicked her empty canteen across the room. “Kriff!”  
The canteen made a satisfying bang as it sailed into the metal wall. The old walker she had repurposed of her home let in small patches of starlight from the sky above. She peered out, trying to be grateful that there wasn’t a sandstorm going on, like the last time it had been this hot. But it was the middle of the night! Shouldn’t she at least get some slack at night?  
She huffed and flopped back onto her bed, spreading her arms and legs into the perfect star shape. Her doll, modeled after a Rebellion pilot in a little orange jumpsuit, rested in the crook of her arm. Rey knew she was too old to like dolls, but who would ever see the dumb thing anyway? Then, feeling bad for thinking meanly about her toy, she pulled it closer to her chest. She closed her eyes…  
It wasn’t her room anymore. The air was cooler, and the material around her newer. Rey sat up uncertainly, suddenly anxious.  
“Hello?” A beat of silence and then…  
“Oh. It’s you again.” The boy was sitting in a high-backed chair, staring out into the darkness. There was something incredibly lonely about the sight, like a moon lost from its planet. He glanced at her. “Aren’t you a little old to be playing with dolls?”  
Rey glanced down at the doll in her arms and frowned. She knew dream boy was much older than her, but he had a wiry look that told her while he was on the very cusp of manhood, he was _just_ there. She stuck out her chin.  
“You’re one to talk. What are you doing, pretending to fly your parent’s ship? You don’t even know how old I am.”  
“You’re thirteen.”  
Damn it. “How do you know that,” she demanded.  
“You told me you were ten years younger than me on one of my Name Days,” he said. “So that makes you thirteen.” He frowned at her, and his mouth seemed practiced at it. “Or so you say. You look more like ten.”  
Rey blushed, but refused to let dream boy get the upper hand. “You try sweating buckets every day and let me know how much weight you keep.” She was very aware of her diminutive size. On Jakku, being bigger meant you could come out a bit better in a fight, but bigger people couldn’t get to the small spaces in salvage ships that she could. Win some, lose a lot.  
“Where are you supposedly at again?” He spun the chair to face her. His clothes were torn and dirty, and he looked like he wasn’t sleeping well.  
“You still don’t think I’m real, do you?” She pulled the tie tighter on one of her buns.  
“No, I don’t. You’re some weird recurring dream my brain decides to have.”  
“Hmph. Then why does it matter where I’m at?”  
Dream boy shrugged. “Just want to see what my subconscious is thinking.”  
“Jakku.” Rey waited for recognition and got none. “See, if I was a figment of your imagination, would I live on a planet you’ve never heard of?  
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Dream boy’s lip wobbled and he spun he chair away from her again.  
“Why are you sad?”  
“I’m not.” She could see by the set of his jaw that he was trying not to cry. She did the same thing whenever she took a tumble or hit on the job and didn’t want the other kids to see.  
“But you are though.” She waited a minute. “Anything I can help with?”  
“Not this time.” Rey nodded and hugged her doll to her chest.  
Dream boy turned to face her. “You’re still waiting for your parents?”  
“Of course I am!” She was aware of how desperate that sounded and cleared her throat to try again. “I mean, yeah. They’ll come.”  
The boy looked at her with so much pity she wanted to punch him.  
“Would you feel better, do you think, if you had left them? Does it hurt less to leave someone before they do it to you?”  
Somehow she didn’t think they were talking about her parents anymore.  
“I’ll never know that,” she said quietly.  
Rey woke up the next morning, she had no memory of the dream, like always. Small flashes of a face, maybe from a dream or a nightmare, but nothing more. 


	2. 2

**Luke**  
“Don’t do this, Luke. Can’t you see what’s going to happen?”  
Luke Skywalker cringed and turned to face the person speaking to him.  
“It’s already happened, Ben!” Ben Kenobi’s Force ghost was frowning, arms crossed over his translucent chest. Luke was not unfamiliar with the look of exasperated consternation Ben was giving him, but he didn’t stop what he was doing.  
“He needs you, more than ever. If Snoke is allowed to continue to twist his mind—“  
“He didn’t want me, Ben. I’m not like you, I couldn’t help him!” Luke lifted his arms, still bearing the burn scars from the attack on the temple, and raised his ship into the air. The Force swelled within him and he used its help to send his only aircraft to the depths of the planet’s sea. There. He wasn’t going back.  
“You should talk to your father, Luke. If you would just commune, you could—“  
“Give it a rest, Ben. Please.” Luke brought a shaking hand over his face and sighed. The scent of dung from the strange creatures that inhabited the planet stung his nostrils as he breathed in deeply. He would go back to being a farm boy, taking care of himself and not needing anything else. If only he had stayed there, maybe he wouldn’t have failed so spectacularly. He’d know nothing about who he was—or wasn’t—would never have seen Ben Solo…  
“Just leave me alone,” he muttered before tossing his comlink into the depths, where it sank to join the ship.  
 **Han**  
Han ducked, but only just in time. He’d forgotten how good his wife was with a blaster. She would have been a dab hand at it naturally, but her Force sensitivity made her a deadly shot. Not that she was trying to kill him. The blaster was set to stun—he hoped.  
“Leia, I said I was sorry! I came as soon as I got your message!” He peeked over the edge of the couch that was serving as his bunker, trying to estimate the number of steps to the door. Leia had her back to him, and he could tell by the set of her shoulders whatever she was looking at was not to her taste. Cautiously, he approached her and put his hand on her shoulder.  
“I really am sorry, Princess.”  
She didn’t even look at him. “That’s not good enough this time, Han. Our son…my baby…our only child is…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence, breaking away to press her lips into a hard line. Han had seen her do this over the years, never breaking her composure even in the face of the most difficult situations. Princess of Alderaan and a leader in every sense of the word.  
“We’ll get him back. Leia,” he said softly.   
“How?” She rounded on him, her eyes bright and furious. “Are you going to rewind the clock, go back a few years, spend more time with him? Call more than once a month?”  
That was a low blow. He must have looked as wounded as he felt, but he rallied at once.  
“That’s not fair, I had to help people just like you did after all this—“  
“Riding around in the Falcon with Chewie, too cool to be General Solo, but ever the _smuggler_ —“  
“You wanted me to be happy! We were happy! Ben had everything, he was happy too!”  
“Evidentially not!” Leia stomped her foot in frustration. “You weren’t there for him, Han, we should never have sent him with Luke!” She took a shuddering breath, and added. “You didn’t even want him to train, you always thought it was stupid. You just wanted to get rid of him!”  
“Don’t put this all on me, when your father was the one who ruined our son in the first place. Tell me honestly, Leia, could you not feel this coming with your magic powers? Or did you not notice? Were you both more like that psychopath that spawned you than I knew? Because the last time I checked, _my_ father never murdered anyone.”  
He had gone too far. He regretted it the instant it left his mouth, but there was no stopping it. Leia was looking at him as though seeing him for the first time.  
“Is that what you think of me? Our son? Did you love us at all?”   
Han heard a roaring in his ears. “Leia…of course I did—I do—I just…  
Her eyes were cold. “Leave. Go be Han Solo somewhere else.”  
He should have fought for her, cried and begged for forgiveness, but he didn’t. After the door closed behind him, Leia brought the datapad to her eye level and read the words:  
The First—  
 **Rey**  
“Order!” The dream boy was in her home tonight, bouncing on the end of her bed. He used his hands to gesticulate wildly as he described the ships hidden in the Unknown Regions, and the growing military base they had established there. Whether this was real or not, she couldn’t say, but dream boy really seemed to be excited about it.  
“The First Order?” She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds like a whole lot of rules in a fancy package.”  
“Oh, but you should see it, youngling.” The boy’s eyes were wide as he described the new stormtroopers, and the ships he had been watching them construct. “TIE fighters, the fastest little battleships in the galaxy. He even said I might be able to get my own.” His smile faded a little, leaving his cheeks flushed. “If I can learn what he’s trying to teach me, of course.”  
Rey pulled her knees to her chest. “Is he still mad at you? That guy?” She had gotten the impression that dream boy’s trainer was not as nice as the boy had been trying to convince her. Oh, there were gifts and things…his own shuttle, nice clothes and weapons, even command of a group of his friends—but it hadn’t escaped her notice that dream boy always ducked his head when talking about his “master” and that he’d gotten harder somehow, over the last few weeks.  
“Yeah,” the boy admitted. “But he should be. I mean, I should be getting it, but it’s harder than I expected.   
She shrugged. “But you’re still learning. He’s just going to have to learn to be patient.”   
The boy smiled at her weakly. “Patience isn’t one of his strong suits.”  
Rey scoffed. “I could show him a thing or two about patience.” They both turned to look at her wall, where she continued to count the days with tic marks.   
“You should see the Order, what they can offer you.” He tries to keep the eagerness out of his voice, but it makes her pause.  
“Do you see your friends a lot?”  
He didn’t want to tell her something. “Um. It’s just different now.” He begins to jiggle one foot, a nervous habit. “But you would really do well here!”  
“Excuse me? You don’t even think I’m real!”  
He looks at her a long time. “Maybe you are.”


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years after the events of chapters 1 and 2...

**Kylo**  
His body has gotten strong over the last four years, hardened into a map of alternating scars. Despite that, he’s never felt weaker as Snoke sends him away again, his ears still ringing with death threats. He leans his head on the shower wall, positively seething as Snoke’s words repeat themselves in his mind:  
 _Useless. Disappointing. Weak. But the best he has._  
Yes, that’s what’s bothering him. It’s the implication that his master is only dealing with him until he finds someone better. Unease twists his stomach, but he quickly sends it away. Who else could possibly do what he’s done? One of the knights of Ren? He snorts. Not nearly powerful enough, not by half. He steps out of the refresher, and is dressed in a matter of seconds. Anything so that he can flop into bed for a few seconds while he’s actually feeling sleepy…  
“Scoot over! Why is it so kriffing cold in here?” He feels the dream girl’s fingers in his side, and yelps as the freezing digits made contact with his skin.  
Why does this always feel so real?  
“Move!” He groans and rolls over, not in the mood for any of this. The girl slides into the warm spot that his body has made, yanks the blankets up to her chin. “Stars, is it always this cold?”  
He makes a noncommittal noise, hoping that his dreams will leave him alone tonight.   
No such luck.  
“Oh come on, you’re already semi-conscious or I wouldn’t be here.” The girl’s accent becomes more pronounced when she’s irritated. “Up!”  
“I’m up, I’m up.” He pushes himself into a sitting position and leans against the headboard. She’s right, it is cold in here. “Why are we always here now? How long has it been since we were on Jakeau?”  
“Jakku,” she corrects him. “I don’t know. Maybe your subconscious doesn’t like it there anymore.”  
“Or maybe it just got tired of sweating to death in your oven.”  
“Whatever.” Her brown eyes are bright as she continues, not really offended. “It’s your name day!”  
He glances towards the clock displayed on the wall, trying to see the date. “Is it?”  
“Duh. So that makes you…”  
“Old.”  
“Twenty-seven!” She throws her hands into the air. “Twenty-seven, and I am seventeen, and that means we must celebrate.”  
He groans and flips over to bury his face in his pillow, but the girl is not deterred.   
“With a sleepover!” She bounces repeatedly on her side of the bed until he rolls back over. He’s surprised to see that she has grown up and filled out. He’s horrified at himself for thinking it, and has to force his eyes away from the ends of her hair where they meet the soft skin at her exposed collarbone.   
“A sleepover?” He’s unconvinced, and already thinking it would be better if she’d just leave.  
“Yes!” She wraps him in a hug, and he can’t think about anything for a moment except for her damned hair that’s swung forward to tickle his shoulder. Feelings stir in him that he hasn’t felt in so long that it takes a minute to place them. Desire. Longing.   
“Kriff, your hair is all over the place. Can’t you do something about it?” Mercifully, she lets go of him and gathers up her locks, looking confused.  
“What, like cut it off? That might be easier.”  
“No!” She looks at him like he’s crazy, and maybe he is. “I mean…you could put it up.”  
She looks skeptical. “Like tie it back?”  
“Not exactly…here, let me show you.” He sits up straighter and crosses his legs, pats the bed in front of him.   
“Are you going to put it in a pretty braid like the one you had in for training that one time?” She’s mocking him, and he bristles indignantly.   
“That was to keep it out of my face! I was trying a new sparring technique.”  
“Sure, sure, pretty boy.” She plops down in front of him and shakes her hair back over her shoulders. “Make it good.”  
How many times did he watch his mother’s clever fingers twist and turn her hair? It was so quick it had looked like a magic trick when he was small. The planet of Alderaan had many traditions, and hair was one of them. There were braids for weddings, mourning, styles for work and royalty. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t remember each one. She’d worked so hard to teach him, to hold onto that part of her upbringing. But the girl needed something of her very own.  
“There.” He finishes and drops his hands into his lap. The girl’s hair is pulled back now, and falling into three cascading buns. She palms them and smiles.  
“I like it. Now, on to the important things.” She snaps her fingers. “Show me the plans.”  
This gets a genuine smile out of him, and he uses the Force to call over the blueprints for a new ship—his ship, unique to the galaxy. The girl examines them critically.  
“No, no, you’ll want this…here.” He leans over and can see that she’s right, and she’s always right when it comes to this stuff. An hour later, they’ve decided on the final plans for the wing designs, and have moved on to more intricate details.  
“What about a bird-name? Those are always popular. Raven. Falcon.”  
He tries not to let his distaste show. “No. Something that shows its speed, superiority.”  
She laughs. “You haven’t even flown it yet!”  
“Yes, but you know it will be unstoppable.”  
She nods. “The Silencer.”  
“Silencer?” He turns it over in his mouth. “Why?”  
She shrugs and leans back against his chest, still looking at the blueprints. He’s taken again by the insane urge to press his cheek to the top of her head. No, no, no.  
“Haven’t you ever heard two ships duke it out? There’s always a whole lot of noise until…”  
“There isn’t.” She’s right. Of course, no sound travels at all in the vacuum of space, but any kind of dogfight in the atmosphere of a planet is a cacophony of noise and cannons until someone wins.  
“The Silencer. I like it.” He’s still absorbed by the thoughts of the TIE fighter they’re creating when the girl turns her head to the right and kisses him.  
This cannot be a dream. That’s all he can think, because her lips are too warm, too real, and much too intent on destroying him. For a moment, he kisses her back enthusiastically, and then breaks away.  
“I can’t, I’m sorry—“ The dream girl looks mortified, and he feels terrible. He should never have reacted like that, not even for a second. He’s seized by the terrible fear that Snoke will somehow pull this dream from his head. On the off chance the girl is real…  
“You should go.” He crawls back into bed, pulls the blankets up and over his face.   
“I’m sorry,” she mutters, unseen. “I wanted to try…Happy birthday.”   
He doesn’t move until he wakes the next morning.


End file.
